David Hardy on “compromise”

An important human aspect of firearms ownership and regulation includes the reluctance of gun owners to consent to measures that, viewed in historical isolation, appear quite limited. But this opposition is understandable if placed in historical context. During the rise of the modern gun-control movement in the early 1970s, gun-control proponents publicly proclaimed their objective was a complete or nearly complete ban on private handgun ownership. And they made it clear that lesser measures were but a means to that end. While they subsequently focused on those lesser measures, they returned to the objective of a complete handgun ban whenever that target of opportunity presented itself. When, in the 1990s, a focus on handguns became politically inexpedient, they switched the focus to semiautomatic rifles—notwithstanding their earlier avowals that rifles were not their concern.

Gun owners thus learned by experience that their opponents were not interested in genuine compromise, where each party gives up something to the other. Their opponents had no stopping point, no exit strategy, no “enough is enough.” Under these conditions, real
compromise is impossible. Any concession given would not be a stopping point, but rather a stepping stone to further restrictions.

This conclusion has been underscored by the experience of gun owners in states with restrictive gun legislation, where waiting
periods for purchase started at one day but were later increased to three, five, and then ten days. And initially limited restrictions have expanded to fill over a thousand pages of annotated text. Many of these measures serve no discernible purpose except to make legal firearm ownership as difficult, expensive, and legally risky as possible.

Intelligent actions are usually founded upon experience. Gun owners’ experiences have taught them one lesson: there is no true compromise to be had.

Kudos, Y.B. You said it better than I ever could. Let the insiders do their inside thing and let the wheeler-dealers wheel and deal. But the bottom line is that those who are serious about being free will — always — “nullify gun laws in the street.”

And that would be true even if the Bloombergians of the world weren’t as ruthlessly vicious as they have time and again shown themselves to be.

One additional note. To those in America (Jews and non-Jews, alike) who say we must work within the system, obey the laws, rely predominantly on the good graces of representative government and community leaders to safeguard our very lives from violent attack I offer a glimpse into your very near future: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/190351#.VMGZhi4YEsI I was probably too hard on Rabbi Menachem Margolin in recent posts. Given the stupifying, putrescent, cowardice of these supposed “leaders” and the complete failure of the civil authorities, Rabbi Margolin is an ethical giant, and deserves strong and stalwart allies. I encourage our readers to reach out to him.